January 2021 got off to a great start for Fortro as our founder, Aileen Boyle, was selected to be a Women’s Enterprise Ambassador.

The WES Ambassador programme shows that role models are one of the key themes in the Strategic Framework for Women in Enterprise which WES co-founded with the Scottish Government in 2014, with the aim of addressing the enduring gender gap in enterprise participation.

51% of start-ups in Scotland are now women-led (Business Gateway Report 2019 – 2020), yet majority women-owned businesses are just 20% of SMEs in Scotland (ONS 2015) and just 14% of SME employer businesses (Small Business Survey Scotland, 2019).

Moreover women have fundamentally different experiences to men in business. Challenges faced by women include access to finance, disproportionate caring responsibilities and access to networks, mentoring and role models (Alison Rose Review 2019). Add in the challenges of Covid-19, women-owned businesses with limited resources, are especially vulnerable to the disruption caused by the pandemic. (WES Covid19 Policy Brief 2, 2020). Of the women business owners surveyed in December 2020, three-quarters found managing their businesses stressful during the pandemic, compared to just over half their male peers. (Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship Update, 2021)

Aileen said “For my part, I am going to focus on showing other women and girls that there is a place for their bold ideas and company, regardless of industry or size of company.”

Aileen went on to say “Role models or "Real" Models are one of the ways business leaders can help contribute to developing leaders of the future. It is also one way to ensure women-led businesses are visible and able to bring their companies to the front of the economy. I am really looking forward to working with the other incredible Ambassadors to effect real change.”

Fortro works with visionary CEOs and leaders, with bold ideas, to build their company, to reframe their challenge and then work out the real levers to pull to create commercial value.

Fortro aims to strengthen organisations from within, through shared wisdom, by being a critical friend, by thinking strategically. Being a WES Ambassador will provide another great opportunity to live this vision.